


Ghosts of the Past

by Schingiuire



Category: Hellsing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schingiuire/pseuds/Schingiuire
Summary: How could this have happened? The past was the past, to be remembered but left behind. Alucard awakens in his past, now the present, and must find a way to escape lest he find himself reliving the very same horrors he'd already survived. However, the past will not allow him to roam free. It will find a way to see him back to Abraham's hands.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. This is a work of fanfiction based on Hellsing. Originally posted on my patreon on 10/30/2019

The sensation of fishhooks through his body, pulling him along their wires, was nothing especially new to him. It was a sensation brought forward every time he was summoned by his masters and did not immediately act on his own will. It was simply the feel of magic taking hold of him under the command of a more powerful force. 

It happened often enough to him that the uncomfortable feeling was no longer unexpected. Normally, he responded to Integra without much hesitation to avoid discomfort. Alucard, however, was not above enduring pain just to irritate Integra. There were times she would summon him without answer. He would purposefully ignore her call. Alucard would make her wait a few extra seconds, until he was forced to answer by the seal’s fishhooks. 

Then, of course, she would summon him while he was sleeping. When he wasn’t prepared for the sensation, it was always more than unpleasant. 

Alucard started awake, instincts screaming. He writhed, twisting into anatomically impossible positions in an effort to relieve or escape the pain. While the pain itself was nothing too great, the shock of waking under such circumstances was frightening.  
Once it wore off, Alucard lay flat on his back, working to recover himself from being dragged from the safety of his coffin while sleeping, for whatever unimportant task Integra desired while the sun still owned the sky. 

“Was that really necessary?” he asked, and listened to the echo of his own voice respond. 

He didn’t hear her heartbeat, and was finally bewildered enough to open his eyes. Nothing had changed. He lay beside his coffin, staring at the stone ceiling. Alucard sat up, frowning and looking around to inspect his surroundings. Out of habit, he reached mental fingers out to Integra. Following the ethereal leash that bound them together, he found his master’s end empty. Unheld. His master was missing. Not dead, not hiding from him. Gone. Not even a successor. Alucard was unsure what to make of such a discovery. 

“Master?” Despite the strange realization, he still called for her, and only heard the echo of his own confusion in answer. 

The vampire’s confusion did not alleviate as he rose to his feet, turning slowly to inspect his room. Something very curious grabbed his attention. His coffin was not his coffin. Yet, it was. He felt the connection with it, but visually he knew this was wrong. It was one of many familiar, old crates he’d used as a coffin, over a century ago when he’d visited England and encountered the hunters responsible for his internment with the Hellsing family. Abraham had destroyed all but one while the men hunted him.  
For a moment, Alucard wondered if he could possibly be hallucinating. His mind was unstable, and he saw shadows and memories from time to time. This was far more detailed than he’d experienced for quite some time. Alucard approached the crate, brushing a hand over it attempting to determine if it was real. This was the coffin he’d been captured in. The very same which Abraham had used to ship him from Romania back to England like some kind of luggage. The marks of holy items and chains used to keep him inside were still marked over its surface. 

Why would he hallucinate such an odd detail? He’d not used this box for so long, and he’d been under the seal for less than a year before Abraham had destroyed it. Alucard was used to seeing strange visions at the edge of his sight, or hearing the voice of long dead masters. This made no sense. Always he understood the lies for what they were. Simply signs of his insanity. Scars upon his mind that would never heal. 

Voices echoed beyond his door, and Alucard straightened to hide within the deep shadows to listen. 

“…perfect sense. I do not understand your methods, Professor, but I cannot argue your logic.”

The voice was so very familiar. Alucard tilted his head to the side, scraping his memory to place the voice. 

“You will in due time, Doctor.” 

Cold fear seized his limbs. That was a voice he’d never forget. Abraham. The second voice became very clear to him with that realization. Doctor John Seward. Both men who had passed away over a century ago. This was more than a simple hallucination brought on by memories. Their voices were too clear, and far more precise than his unstable mind could concoct. Alucard breathed in to capture the scent and taste of the air. The two hunters walked past his door, continuing their conversation. 

How was this possible? It was as if he’d been dragged deep into his past. Alucard listened to the men retreat through the hallways. Looking down at the familiar coffin, Alucard crouched and opened it. Breathing in the strong scent of his homeland he questioned how real the scene before him had become. What was this?

He closed the coffin and turned to slip through the doorway. Scents so long gone assaulted his senses fresh. Abraham’s strong scent of leather, gunpowder, and chemicals. He smelled like death, but not as a human knew it. A danger, another predator. Alucard slipped away, moving in the direction the two men had traveled from. These halls were well known to him. Every stone and crack just another friend. These halls had been his home for over a century. The only question in his mind now was which century he was currently in. This was no hallucination. Things were far too perfect. Details even his mind would not create in a figment of his memory. 

No other humans moved through the hallways. This was some time before Abraham would build his young organization, before support from the monarchy. Alucard paused outside the last cell of the lowest dungeons. This space held his scent. But the scent suggested him as a weaker creature than he currently was. It was strange to scent his own at two different phases of his life. He couldn’t hear sound beyond the door but he knew what was beyond it. 

Himself. Freshly captured by the humans who were, no doubt, relaxing in the upper levels.

Alucard backed away and retreated back to the crate of soil. Here he felt some small semblance of safety. Abraham, or any of the others, would likely not visit here for a few weeks. He settled himself on the lid, clasping his hands and leaning forward in deep thought. 

This was no work of deranged imagination. Something, somehow, had thrust him into his past. It was one of the darker times, the one he’d feared above all. Why? Why was he here? What purpose would this serve? He wasn’t even reliving this but just another participant. How would time handle two of him?

Alucard feared making himself known to Abraham and the others. Fears he had buried long ago began surfacing. The fear of hunters once more tailing him through darkened streets and mist veiled forests. He’d originally met the group with the same amused haughtiness he’d faced all hunters with. That was until he’d been defeated. 

Had Abraham, in his experimentation of occult, mistakenly summoned him here? Were that the case, wouldn’t this same event have happened in his past as well? Abraham never seemed distracted. But if the professor were the reason he’d been brought here, Alucard worried he’d need to confront him. Facing Abraham again did not sound inviting. Would the man believe him at all or think him some trick of the younger Dracula? And the ultimate question: Would Abraham help him at all?


	2. Chapter 2

With the initial shock of his arrival wearing off, Alucard began to feel the sun pressuring him to sleep. Within the storage room he was safe. No one knew he was here. Without a master forcing him to remain awake, he would succumb to his instincts and sleep.

The coffin was so inviting. It called to him like a long lost friend, urging him to find comfort and safety within the soil it held. With the pressure on his mind, Alucard guessed the time to be early afternoon. At this hour of day Abraham and his guest would likely be relaxing overhead, drinking and talking.

Alucard glanced around himself as he settled to sit atop the coffin and process his situation. He lowered his hands to the coffin’s surface, brushing fingers across the aged wood. Just under two years after the vampire’s capture, Abraham had destroyed the box in dramatic, violent fashion. After his capture, it was roughly a year before the seal was created. Alucard knew the coffin’s existence meant he was in a time frame within those two years after his capture. He did not know if the old hunter had already placed the seal on the wild vampire behind the cell door.

With the sun still high, Alucard was hesitant to explore. This was no longer his home or his lair. These walls were not safe. Abraham would have wards in place to prevent him, and his counterpart, from moving easily through the walls and escaping. Though he was not locked in a cell, Alucard would not underestimate Abraham. The human was a master hunter.

Underestimating the strength and will of these men had been the very thing that had landed him in chains.

No, Alucard would be much more cautious. The estate wasn’t safe. Wandering freely would be dangerous, but he did not want to stay here. As inviting as sleeping in the coffin seemed, Alucard knew he would be helpless. He would need to be very careful with his next steps.

That left only the option to wait for nightfall. At least then the hunter would be asleep and the manor quiet.

While he mused, Alucard wondered about the effect of his presence to this time. How simple it would be to stride down the hallway and release the wretch from his chains. Would it change his past? Alucard was not even sure if the seal was in place yet. If not, releasing Dracula back into the world or into the home of the unsuspecting Abraham Helsing would very likely change everything. Would he then cease to exist? After all, if Abraham were killed now, the decades of torture afterward would never happen. He’d be free.

The thought was so very tempting. Alucard’s eyes widened in the darkness, glowing with a wild fervor he’d not felt in so long. What would it change? Would he really be free? He might not change his own past at all, but this world would have two of him: one a wild beast and one a beaten dog.

Alucard stood from his seat, fighting against the feeling of fatigue, and tensing as he wrestled with the thoughts of defeating Abraham. He’d watched the man die of old age, taken by time. The pleasure of seeing life fade from Abraham Helsing’s eyes had been denied him. Perhaps now, things would be different. However he’d been brought here or had caused this rift in time, Alucard could take advantage of it.

Unfortunately, he was sealed. He could not draw Hellsing blood with his own hands. Not unless doing so protected his master in some way. At least, not while he was collared and chained by the magic. If his counterpart was still free and wild, however, this was a perfect opportunity for Abraham to die.

The longer he stood in thought, the more he leaned towards the idea of killing Abraham. If the hunter were responsible for dragging Alucard to this time, displacing him, then his death could possibly seal him to this time. But with Abraham dead, would it really matter? He could continue to exist here and feel a new freedom. The magic still held power over him, but he would be free to find a way to remove it. He’d answer to no master.

Following these thoughts, Alucard stepped through the doorway, shuddering as he moved into the trail of Abraham’s scent. The man was upstairs, lounging with his companions and was no threat to him here. Likely he was basking in the victory of having Dracula held at bay in a cage below the ground, sealed yet or not. That victory would not last long. With slowly increasing speed, Alucard moved down the hallways that separated them, for the cell door that locked his counterpart away. In this time, the vampire would still be Dracula. Abraham had not had a chance to break his will and change his name. Even within two years, Dracula was still wild.

With a final thought of the consequences, Alucard gripped the door to the vampire’s cell, ready to thrust it open. Instincts that had kept him alive to see six centuries screamed through his brain.

_ Hide! _

_ Danger! _

_ Death comes for you! _

He snatched his hand from the door and vanished into the shadows. Waiting in silence, Alucard listened through the halls, his nerves reverberating from the warning of his instincts. He strained his senses, listening through the hallways for any sign of an approaching hunter. The more he pressed his senses, the more Alucard realized things were muffled around him. These halls were thick with wards and barriers to work against such creatures as he.

Of course they were. Abraham Hellsing was no fool and would have taken extreme precautions to ensure even if the vampire did, against all odds, escape from the cell, it wouldn’t be able to get out of the lower levels. It was the first time Alucard wondered if, perhaps, he was trapped here.

After several moments of empty silence, unable to sense anything through the muffled fog caused by wards, Alucard moved from his shadows to stand before the door. He determined that the door itself was responsible for the alarm. He had never experienced the wards Abraham had left on his cell door. When he’d been trapped in this cell himself, he had only been left unchained once Abraham had secured the seal. And immediately, the old hunter’s order had prevented him from ever touching the door itself, let alone the handle.

Scoffing at himself for not realizing these tricks sooner, Alucard again reached for the door, this time ignoring the frantic screams of his instincts.

The sudden steady tap of approaching footsteps broke through the fog and were closer than he would have ever expected. Alucard panicked, again vanishing into the safety of his shadows and to watch as Abraham rounded a corner with his lantern held high. Seeing the man, flesh and blood, again pierced Alucard through his core.

Abraham kept a steady pace, approaching the door and pausing with a look of mild curiosity and confusion.

Alucard felt the magical chains of the seal tighten around him and burn. It wanted to fill the void of a master. Abraham raised the lantern, inspecting the door until he seemed satisfied. Then the man turned and stared directly into the shadows where Alucard hid, frowning as if he saw or sensed something there the vampire couldn’t hide.

Again, Abraham looked to the door, and moved to open it. Raising his lantern high, the man stepped into the cell. Shifting his shadows, Alucard positioned himself to peer into the cell and watch as Abraham stood over the chained form of Dracula.

Dracula lay crumpled at the back of the cell, heavily chained and starved, naked and covered in grime from the cell. This had been him only a century ago. It was unnerving to see himself, as if he could suddenly witness his reflection in a mirror. The sensation felt foreign and disconcerting.

The shadows around the doorway moved unnaturally. Alucard dared to enter just inside the doorway, moving the shadows with him to keep himself hidden from all but the most observant inspection. He wanted to see more. Once Dracula moved, Alucard had the answer he needed. 

The angry brand of magic scorched into vampiric flesh glared angrily back at Alucard. Dracula was sealed. The damage was fresh, not more than a few days old.

All fantasy of seeing Abraham die by the claws of the vampire he challenged vanished in a surge of disappointment. Alucard felt defeated all over again, dismay weighing on his shoulders. With one door to his plan closed, he saw only the path of repairing whatever had been done to bring him to this time.

“How are you feeling?” Abraham’s voice echoed across the stone.

Alucard shrank back, fearing he may instinctively answer. Despite the years that stretched between them, memories of his time with this man were branded into his psyche and behavior. 

He’d been well trained. He expected the pain of silence to burn at his nerves, but nothing came. Abraham was not his master. Not anymore.

The question was asked with clinical interest. Abraham did not care if the creature was uncomfortable or not, but only wanted to know the effects of his experiments. The question had been asked many, many times in Alucard’s memory.

Dracula’s answer was short and strained. It was filled with rage and the small seeds of budding fear. Alucard remembered such a time. When he still had the pride, will, and strength to fight this hunter.

This answer had been expected, Alucard could see as much from Abraham’s body language.

“When you’re more agreeable, we will have another discussion. Until then, rest well, Count.”

While the exactness of dialogue was unknown, Alucard remembered a scene very similar to this. Abraham van Helsing had stood over him soon after the magic was placed upon him, and Alucard had felt nothing but fiery hatred. At the time, the vampire failed to understand exactly what had been done to him.

OoOoO

Odd motion of shadow caught Abraham’s eye as he stepped through the door and locked the vampire inside. While he did not feel threatened, he paused to observe the shadows. Something was drawing him to them, like a gentle tug. Something had felt off just outside the door as well. There had been odd flickers of shadow that were just out of sync with the dancing flame inside his lantern.

Abraham assumed all the strangeness to be from the vampire and the new magic that secured it to him. Once the door had been locked, the shadows appeared normal, but Abraham still had an unnerving sensation he attributed to sensing a vampire was near. But of course, there was a vampire behind the door. It was no wonder he was feeling something off.

Shaking away the sensation, Abraham pocketed his keys and made his way down the hallway. There was a definite feeling of evil at his heels, and the hunter found himself looking over his shoulder at each corner, expecting to see the glowing eyes of some beast stalking him. Something was wrong. There was something off in the air here, and Abraham couldn’t quite place it. For now, he stepped through the door that separated the upper levels from the darkness below, and shut it with a firm click of the lock.

The sensation of evil vanished, and here, the shadows behaved normally. Abraham felt faint concern that the Count was finding some way to slip the magical noose he had put about its throat. For now, it was firmly locked below and there was no escape. In time, Abraham was confident he would reign in that power and the creature would bow to him. Dracula would no longer be a threat to him or the world. 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
